Information concerning the economic history, geography and population of Transylvania has been preserved in documents from the last third of the eleventh century. While the passage in the Legenda M aior of Saint Gerald describing Saint Stephen's boats transporting salt on the Maros seems au
thentic (cf. the story of Ajtony mentioned earlier), it was in 1075 that the salt tax (tributum salinarum) from a place near th ecastru m oi Torda "ultra silvam", called Aranas in Hungarian, was mentioned in an authenticated charter for the first time. The occasion was King G6za I's waiving of half this salt tax in favour of the Abbey of Saint Benedict, situated by the Garam River. Shortly afterwards, we have reports of salt as a real form of endowment.
King Bela II's authenticated charter from around 1131,confirmed King La- dislas I's salt endowment of 1092 awarded to the Abbey of Saint Maurice in Bakonybel, which had been challenged during the reign of King Stephen II.
Ladislas assigned twenty-four households (mansiones) to the Abbey, which were obliged to deliver 600 salt cubes (the number was later scratched out and "corrected" to 6,000) to the brothers four times a year (qui quattuor vicibus per annum sol deferrent scilicet, sexcentos lapides fratribus) ^ There is little doubt about the salt coming from Transylvania, as can be seen from King B61a II's charter of 1138, which will be discussed later. At first reading, however, it is not clear whether the twenty-four heads of families listed by nam e were salt m iners or only people who transported the salt, since their places of residence are not listed in the charter. The names of villages are also m iss
ing in that twelfth-century charter forged for the benefit of the Bakonybel abbey and dated to 1086, into which Ladislas's original deed of 1092 was inserted after the duties were generously increased. Still, it is more inform a
tive, insofar as it mentions a salt mine (salifodio), salt mining and three boats for transporting salt (navibus) in connection w ith the sam e tw enty-four names. These names had come into Bela II's authentic charter of 1131 from Ladislas's lost charter of 1092. It is, therefore, precisely the late forgery which bears witness to Transylvania's salt revenues.33
3 2 .1. Cin n a m u s, Epitome 26. = FBHH 238-239 and 337.
33. P. SOrOs, A bakonyb61i ap&tsSg tOrt&nete. (The History of the Bakonybel Abbey.) In: A pannonhalmi Szt .Benedek-rend tortenete. (The History of the Pannonhalma
Order of Saint Benedict.) VIII. Budapest 1903, 271-272.
154
The members of the twenty-four households listed in the deed of 1092 in principle could have resided anywhere. However, their Transylvanian ori
gin is supported by the very fact that the villages they lived in are not men
tioned in the deed. In the same way, the villages of the surely Transylvani
an salt transporters are not specified in the deed of 1138, either. This pecu
liarity, w hile still needing further research, indicates that the miners and transporters of salt in early Transylvania were registered under the names of the heads of families and not by the names of their home villages.
The twenty-four names copied from the charter of 1092 support the Tran
sylvanian origin of the salt transporters. It is in this charter that the word Scicul/Scichul, w hich is the oldest form of the designation "Szekely" (in A nonym us's G esta: Sicul; in charters from 1213 and 1222: Sicul; in the Regestrum of Varad from 1217: Scecul) first appears and demonstrates the fact that those scholars of Turkic languages who earlier had tried to derive
"Szekely" from the word sikil (recte: silik) or eskil/esekel were mistaken. Chris
tian names — we find Paulus, Martinus and Michael — are still rare. There w ere m any more unambiguous Hungarian servant names (San = Cs&ny;
Nesinc = Nesincs; Nanasca = Nanasz/a/; Sacan = Cscikany; Zakan/Zachan
= Z&k&ny; Bela; and Kasudi = Kasadi; Cuna = Csunya; Keta = Kot6; Rescadi
= Reszedi). The Finno-Ugric suffix -di can also be found at the end of Slavic or other names (Zagordi, Bedladi), while the charter contains exam ples of purely Slavic names as well (Boguta and Walen). The remainder of the names, apart from a nickname (Negus), are hard to interpret (Lawa, Cunei, Zaut, Desce and Gnenu).
It was again King Bela II who, in a charter of 3 September, 1138,34 listed all those properties that in 1108 his father, Prince Almos, had donated to the Abbey of DSmOs and confirmed the ecclesiastics in their rights. Twenty- five transporters of salt were listed from the "salt village" of Sahtu/Sajti by the M aros River. Twice a year they were obliged to ferry the salt on the M aros from Transylvania to the market of Szombathely (forum Sumbuth) in the county of Arad. The salt transporters of Sajti had single-com ponent H ungarian names, such as Aianduk = Aj^ndek, Bise = Bicse or Bese, Buken
= Bokeny, Forcos = Farkas, Halaldi = Halaldi, Kewereg = Kevereg, M aradek
= Maradek, Niundi =Nyundi, Numarek = Nyomorek, Silev = Stillo, Sima = Sima, W endeg = Vendeg, Wosos = Vasas even their Christian names are Hungarian-sounding: Iwanus, Pedur, Michal, Niclous.
The 24,000 salt cubes — the number in the copy of 1329 was probably a later "correction" — transported to the Abbey of Domos by the people of Sajti (allatores salis = salt carriers) were carved out by mem bers of those thirty Transylvanian households — In Ultrasilvanis partibus sunt mansiones cjue sal dare debent (In the Transylvanian Parts there are mansions which are obliged to give salt) — whose residence was so unclear in the 1138 copy of the same document. About three-fifths of the salt miners had single-compo
nent Hungarian names: Wosas = Vasas, Besedi = Beszedi, Fuglidi = Fogolydi, Both = Bot, Vtos = Utas, Cima = Sima, Kosu = Kos, Halis = H&l&s/Hal£sz,
34. D. SzabO, A domosi prepostsag adom^nylevele. (The Deed of the Abbey of Domos.) Magyar Nyelv (Hungarian Language), 1936, 203ff.
Himudi = Himdi, Satadi = Csatadi (?), Sounik = Szonok, Orsci = Orrszi, Emis = Emes, Vza = Uza, Eulegen = Olegyen, Ellu = E116/E16, W endi = Vendi. The remainder of the names were either Slavic — Kinis, Senin, Sokol, Lesin, Ginon and Viuscij (the Slavic Christian Wasil belongs to this group)
— or Christian: Martin, Simeon and Isaac. The origins of the names Vir and Ogsan are unknown, or rather, uncertain. The deeds of 1092 and 1138 pro
vide the first chance to catch a glimpse of Transylvania's early ethnic com
position. It is also worth noting that the forgeries and the transcriptions executed in the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries point to the dynamic growth of salt mining.
According to the deed of 1138, the people from the "Transylvanian areas"
assigned to the Abbey of Domos were obliged to pay dues to the abbey in the form of the skins of twenty martens and one bear as well as one bison horn and one hundred leather belts. Unfortunately, names are not m en
tioned in the deed.
The perambulation of Asszonynepe, the estate donated to Abbey of Saint M aurice at Arad by King Bela II after 1131, were recorded in 1177.35 This is the oldest available information on Transylvanian village names. All the place-nam es specified are Hungarian: Feketefee = Feketefeje/f6; Hegeshol- m[ir]u = Hegyeshalom; Sossed = S6s-s6d; Husee Berke = Huseje/Huso/
Husi berke; Ret = Ret; Sciluas = Szilvas; Thow = T6; Feqet kopua = Fekete kapuja; Fequet = Fekete, later called Fugad/Fiigod. Similarly, nearby vil
lages also bore the names of Hungarian or Turkic persons: Bodon; Lapad;
Heren; Tordosi de Vyuuar = Tordos of Ujvdr; and Suqman = S/Szukman, the later Szokmand. The word "C axun" occurs in this document, appearing as the nam e of a grove, probably the result of misspelling the nam e Taxun/
Taksony (only a stroke from the letter C is missing). The name "Parpurcum "
(= Harpurtum) was also misspelled; in 1317, it was written as Haperton.
The village is today known as Haporton. The Transylvanian Hungarian word
"haportyan" roughly means "rush mat (basket) w eaver".
At the same tim e the boundaries of the Torda estates of the Abbey of Arad w as also registered in Hungarian: the Aranyos (Oronos) River, Fyzes- kuth = Fuzeskut, Monoros River, Sos River. The boundary description of the estate of the Cistercian Abbey of Kerc, donated between 1202 and 1208, and taken out of the territories of the Fogaras Vlachs (terra exem pta de Blaccis) from 1223 is also of great importance. In this, except the names of the Olt (Alt) and the Kerc (Kerch) — which is of unknown origin — rivers, only early Hungarian (Hungarian-Slav) boundary names are mentioned:
the marshy Egerpatak (Egvverpotac), the Nogebik (Nagybukk) and the Arpas River. These, probably, are remains from the times before the reign of Bela III and Geza II.
3 5 .1. Bo r s a, III. Bela 1177. 6vi konyvalaku privil6giuma az aradi kgptalan szSm^ra (The 1177 Charter of B61a III for the Abbey of Arad). Leveltari Kozlemenyek, 1962,